SBIR Award Programs Wrestle with Minority Outreach

Funded through a small tax on extramural research budgets, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards are offered by 11 federal agencies with an overall goal of backing innovation by small businesses. With a typical maximum of $150,000 for phase I awards and $1 million for phase II awards, SBIR programs have had varying degrees of success – especially when factoring in their explicit mandate to enhance opportunities for women and minorities. In particular, National Institute of Health (NIH) SBIR awards have struggled to reach underserved audiences, according to a new study by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The details of the report, which appear in Science, describe a survey of principal investigators (PIs) who received a late-stage NIH SBIR award between 2001 and 2010. Of the 604 awardees that responded to the survey, just two were African-American. Furthermore, Hispanic recipients represented 2 percent of phase II awards, while just one Native American PI responded to the survey. An earlier report yielded similar results for the Department of Defense, where more than $1 billion was spent on SBIR Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) awards, the most of any agency.

Ultimately, despite its successes elsewhere, the NIH has struggled with effective outreach. Representatives from a National Academies’ panel advocate for a more comprehensive strategy that supports minority scientists earlier on in their career in lieu of quotas, which are considered by some as dilutive of application quality.